The Borrowed Hills is narrated by Steve Elliman, looking back on his life and his complicated relationship with his home in the sheep farms of Cumbria. In his youth he is desperate to escape his father’s farm, but he keeps returning, the first time during the foot-and-mouth crisis, which has a vivid impact on the landscape and the people in it.
Later he becomes embroiled in the increasingly baroque law-breaking schemes of William Herne, a neighbouring farmer turned sheep rustler, drawn not least by his complicated feelings for William’s wife, Helen, the only significant female character, who nonetheless holds her own in a world of men.
Preston’s writing is fresh and vivid in its description of the landscape and its inhabitants – not least the sheep. Steve and his neighbours have a deep, visceral connection to the hills – deepened by the paradox that many of the farmers are tenants, who will never own the places they know and care for.
There is a vein of bleak humour running through the novel and the dialogue is brilliant, blunt and terse, each monosyllabic phrase freighted with a meaning the characters will never deign to explain.
I probably wouldn’t have got the neo-Western references in The Borrowed Hills without a nudge from the publisher, but once seen it’s unmissable. The world Preston describes is lawless, far from anywhere, bound by its own impenetrable codes. While tourists and second-home dwellers and the state (police, army, taxes) are there in the background, they rarely intrude into the mental landscape of the protagonists, except as obstacles to go around.
The character of Steve remains an enigma. He is strong and resourceful, yet he appears to be unable to extricate himself, first from his father’s farm, and then from the Hernes and their herd. As the story unfolds you think you understand the pull of the place, but no one, least of all Steve, is going to spell it out for you.
I received a copy of The Borrowed Hills from the publisher via NetGalley.
View The Borrowed Hills on Goodreads
Kate Vane 